How Timely (ABANDONED)
by neverlanding rapunzel
Summary: "Chat would recognise the two anywhere—for the smiling couple before him was a youthful version of his parents." / Time travel fic. love square. possible rating change later.
1. Crash Landing

ONE: Chat Noir felt as if his body were being ripped to shreds, as the stinging wind rushed past his ears as he hurtled through the portal, his lady by his side. His lungs both simultaneously felt like they were filled with water and alit with flames—if that were even possible.

And, in a moment, it all stopped. He felt his face crash against concrete, and he was absolutely certain that the impact would leave a mark upon his skin—but never mind that—he looked to his side, and his lady lay there, uninjured but groggy from the experience, whatever that experience may have been. Chat looked around, instantaneously recognising the very building that he stood. The buildings walls had been cleansed of age, but still it was the same: his school.

Ladybug seemed to have recognised it to some extent, too. However, she couldn't seem to be able to think on it as her eyelids began to close with her exhaustion—Chat recognised what this tiredness most likely was, and he didn't like it one bit.

A pedestrian walking by commented on the strangeness of their outfits, which is the first sign that something was definitely wrong. It would be expected that everyone in the city knew whom Ladybug and Chat Noir were, not personally, but knew of their heroics. They had saved the city often enough to make the news almost every three days: so why didn't this random man say more than just a rude acknowledgement of their spandex?

Chat didn't wish for another confrontation, and leaned over his lady that was on the verge if falling asleep. He lowered himself seeral inches from her face, before saying, "You best wake up, My Lady."

She barely stirs, and so the cat-themed superhero has a slightly different approach. "If you don't get up right now, I'll have to kiss you awake."

In a move that slightly offended Chat, Ladybug awoke with such a start that the pair were almost centimetres off of colliding skulls, if it weren't for Chat's quick reflexes in moving away.

"What was that?" Ladybug asked, her hand placed against her forehead, still throbbing from impact. "I don't know," Chat shakes his head as he crouches beside his partner. He forces her to look at him. "What's your name?"

Ladybug raises an inquisitive eyebrow at him, to which he widens his eyes and moves back slightly. "I didn't mean... like, reveal your identity. I... just... checking you don't have a concussion."

Ladybug lowers her stare and replies with a curt "I'm fine" before she rises to her feet. She walks down the stairs and gestures for Chat Noir to follow, to which he obliges.

It is Chat who speaks first. "You know, earlier there was this guy who walked past and didn't recognise us-"  
"—probably a tourist," Ladybug cuts over him, for it is not likely that other cities outside of France know of the existence of Paris' guardian superheroes. Chat nods in agreement, though still not entirely convinced in the way that his partner seems to be.

"Yeah, but..." he's cut off by a stranger walking past, with baggy denim pants and a jean-jacket. "I see double-denim is back in fashion. Awful." Chat Noir thinks of himself in his civilian form, Adrien Agreste, the teen model sensation that would most definitely have to wear whatever was fashionable these days: the good, the bad and the ugly.

"You know fashion, Chaton?" Ladybug doesn't bother to hide her surprise, "I'm impressed."

The pair continue walking along the streets, following the road. "It's my model-worthy body. Have to dress it up nice in order to impress the ladies."  
"I know one lady that isn't impressed." She gestures to herself as they pass a familiar large building, however, with a lack of many of the security protocols it usually had, for example it's large fence surrounding the entire lot.

"Hang on a moment," Chat stops Ladybug by snapping his arm out in front of her. She scowls at the gesture at first, before she sees the difference.

"Agreste mansion," she breathes, "I remember the security being a little more... uptight."

Chat knew better than anyone about the extreme lengths Gabriel Agreste had to keep people out of his house. It was the same extreme lengths that made it so difficult for him, as Adrien, to leave unattended while in his civilian form.

In that exact moment, the front doors open. Chat quickly grabs Ladybug by the waist and pulls her behind a tree with him, not caring that the spotted heroine was utterly perplexed by this. From the doorway came two people. The first, a willowy girl, on the verge of womanhood, with flowing ash-blonde hair and a thin face. Even from here, Chat could see the vivid green in her eyes that so much resembled the colour he saw in his own irises whenever he looked in the mirror—or in a magazine. Closely behind her was a boy in his late teens. He appeared rough around the edges, stiffened by responsibility. He was also a blond, though closer to a peroxide. His angular face was harsh to look at, though somehow, the girl being so close to him softened this intensity; they were so clearly a couple, or a couple near-about. Chat would recognise the two anywhere—for the smiling couple before him was a youthful version of his parents, Gabriel and Emilie Agreste.l

author's note: so. this chapter has a lot of room for improvement and i may rewrite it at a later date, however, this was a random idea i came up with and so i decided to very hurriedly write it on my shitty first generation ipod touch (yes, they still exist lmao) which is why the formatting is terrible—once again, will be fixed at at a later date.

ANYWAYYYY just putting this idea out there and if this first chapter gets at least five positive reviews i may write chapter two

—neverlanding rapunzel 


	2. Maaya

TWO: Chat Noir, Parisian superhero—also, simultaneously: Adrien Agreste, teen-boy model, extraordinaire—was striken at the sight of his parents. They had to be around his age of fifteen, or thereabouts. It would still be a little over a decade until he was to be born, and yet, here they are together, their relationship blossoming in the mid-days of their teenhood.

"Is that..?" Adrien hears Ladybug mutter beside him. Of course, she would recognise his parents, too, even with a good twenty years (or so) years scraped from their faces.

"Let's go talk to them—" Chat begins impulsively to step towards them before being stopped by Ladybug. "Chat, this isn't good. First off, apparently we've gone back in time," she stresses the point with harsh enunciation, "and that doesn't even seem to phase you. Secondly, we can't just go walking up to them, we're in our hero outfits. This is a Paris before Hawkmoth; before Paris needed superheroes. Don't you think a giant bug and cat would startle them, even just a little?"

Adrien turns his head slightly to look back on Gabriel and Emilie—namely the latter—with a hidden sigh. He yearned so much to speak to her, for her to hold him another time. It had been so long since she had vanished, Adrien longed for any kind of motherly sentiment, even if it was from a girl who hadn't even thought him up yet. "I guess you're right."

"But that poses another question," Ladybug doesn't even notice her partner's shifty behaviour, instead her mind ticking away at a solution to every problem coming at their position right now. "We can't walk around like this, nor can we walk around as our civilian selves without revealing ourselves to each other."

Adrien snaps out of his haze temporarily, ruminating on the subject of their civilian reveal. He knew it wasn't something Ladybug was okay with, but it was also something he had been eagerly anticipating for quite some time now. In spite of this, he says what he believes to be the right conclusion: "Master Fu."

With this, Ladybug realises with a jolt that Master Fu was most likely still around in this pre-Hawkmoth Paris, being the key guardian of the miracle stones. He, of all the people in the city, was the cat and bug team's best hope.

It didn't take long for the pair to make it to Master Fu's place, still posing as a spiritual Chinese-style remedial building. The hawaiian-donned elderly man takes a few moments to assess Chat Noir and Ladybug, their outfits and obvious miraculous on their finger and ears, respectively.

"I assume this will make sense in a moment," is what the master says, before awaiting their explanation.

Ladybug wastes no time, jumping straight into the beginning. "It had been the year 2015—we were fighting an dark akuma, sent out by the holder of the butterfly miraculous wielded in our time, Hawkmoth. It changed this person—a clock-seller, I believe—into Hourglass. Before we could even begin to fight it, as find ourselves ripped here. We realised it was the past due to some slight... differences, however, we don't know exactly what year it is..."

Master Fu isn't even slightly shocked by thus information. Contrary, he seems to expected the majority of what he had just been told. He nods slightly, before informing them, "It's April sixth, 1989."

"Right..." Ladybug is at a slight loss for words, however, Adrien is not. "Next thing: we're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. We need to be able to wander around freely, but we can't just be our civilian selves for... reasons."

"Easy remedy," Master Fu says as he reveals the hiding spot where he had placed the miracle stones in his possession. He opens the box with caution. The bee, cat, ladybug, and vixen miraculous still are safely hidden away, the ying/yang pair being identical to the ones currently owned by Adrien and his Bugaboo. At first, Adrien thinks that he's getting the past versions of the bug/cat miraculous, however, instead the Chinese man grabs the fox-themed one.

"Have you ever heard of the Japanese Kitsune?" Master Fu asks, most likely rhetorically, as it would be unlikely that these two fifteen-year-olds would know about Japanese folklore. "They are fox that disguise themselves as humans—this pendant has a similar power, the ability to create illusion." Ladybug is reminded strongly of Lila's run-in with Hawkmoth, in which she became the illusive Volpina.

"With this, you will be able to conceal your identities from anyone who sees you, granted you will have to stay close to whomever has the miraculous in order for it to work." He places it over Chat Noir's neck, a great feat considering Adrien's height of almost five-ten in comparison to Fu's much smaller size. Immediately, a kwami appears before them three. Minute, with faded orange fur, white flecks, a protruding tail, fox-like ears and vibrant violet eyes.

"Hello, I'm Maaya," the kwami tells Ladybug and Chat Noir, "I'm the..."  
Adrien cuts over her, "We're aware. We're not your holder, we just really need your help. We need a disguise, something that'll hide our civilian selves from everyone."

Maaya scowls for a moment, before deciding it's most likely not worth frowning over. She floats up onto Chat's shoulder, deciding he's comfortable enough for her to bear with the job. Seeing this as a positive sign, Chat turns to Ladybug. "I think... I think we can take our outfits off now."

In unison, they both utter their corresponding words to let their transformation go, anxious as to what that will look like user the guise of Maaya the kwami.

—  
author's note: this chapter is total bs that i made up bc i didn't want to go straight into a reveal in chapter two. for those wondering, a kitsune is an actually folklore in japanese culture (at least that's what my half hour google search told me lol). as for the fox miraculous and maaya (maaya or 'maya' actually means illusion) the kwami, i obviously have no idea of what the name is or the powers, i just needed an excuse for marinette and adrien to have disguises.

as you probably noticed, this story follows adrien/chat more over ladybug and is primarily set as a third person though as if it were adrien's mindset, hence why i constantly swap between using chat/adrien but i always refer to marinette is ladybug.

something that you may wanna pay attention to is the fact that, not including the turtle miraculous (which is owned by master fu, of course) there are two miracle stones missing. this is important af to the plot of u want any idea of what's going on.

—neverlanding rapunzel 


	3. Emilie and Gabe

THREE: They didn't feel any different. Or, that was to say, they still felt like themselves as the superhero identity fell from them. Adrien looked down at himself—was he taller?—no, that wasn't it. He was higher from the ground than usual, however, that was due to Maaya apparently deciding that he should wear slight heels.

Master Fu disappeared into the back room for a moment, reappearing a minute later with a body-length mirror on wheels. He places it in front of Adrien, whom of which inspects his new appearance cautiously. His eyes appear more narrow, his hair more blond, and, to his horror, his hair is also partially slicked back. Adrien can't help but feel this new appearance of his to look startlingly like his father.

"It's like they took all the parts of me that belonged to my mother and left me with just my father." He observes his eyes, which are thankfully still his mother's unique green. He would rather not have his father's icy cold stare.

"Stop complaining, you're..." the girl beside him, Adrien assumes is the disguised Ladybug, "decent...looking."  
A smirk rests upon Adrien's lips; his sly facial expressions are still intact. "Why, of course, My Lady. I am, after all, a model."

Ladybug takes this comment as a highly inflated ego, over her partner genuinely speaking the truth. She pushes past him to observe her own features. Her hips are somewhat wider, though still with slim waist. Her eyes are smaller, more curved. Her hair, too, has changed, in both length and cut. What was once shoulder-length, now reached just above her hip bone, and her fringe was much messier, though still with bangs.

Maaya feigned coughing on Adrien's shoulder in an attempt for the attention to turn to her. "I don't suppose you two are going to thank me."

Adrien obliged to this, before asking the kwami a question, "How can you control your powers? Don't kwamis have to merged with their holder to use their power?"

Master Fu shook his head before Maaya could answer, "Of course not. The kwamis can use their powers, though on a much smaller scale."

"Tikki," Ladybug spoke to the air just as a red and black spotted kwami flew into sight, "Is this true?"  
Tikki's abnormally high-pitched voice throws Adrien off. "Of course, but I would never do it. There's no use for me to use a Lucky Charm, anyway," the bug-based kwami turns to Adrien, "Where's Plagg?"

"Is that my dearest beloved?" a voice cries out from the folds of Adrien's newly-donned petticoat. Seconds later, Plagg appears and begins snuggling up to Tikki.

"You..." Adrien begins, at a loss of what to say," and... you make fun of me for being a sap!"

The disguised Ladybug perks up that, "Chat Noir, a sap? Feeling a bit emotional, Chaton?"

Adrien shrugs this off by instead addressing Maaya, "Are you sure you've got no problem with us using your power?"  
If Adrien didn't know that kwamis didn't have eyebrows, he would suspect that the kwami was raising hers at him. "I don't exactly have a choice."

This kwami was certainly different from Plagg, and miles away from even resembling Tikki. Where Plagg had laziness and an abundance in appetite, Maaya made up for in sass. Where Tikki was a moral compass, the vixen kwami was vain. The young Agreste pitied the poor soul that would have to merge with this particular kwami.

"It would make me feel much better if I... well, I'd I had your consent. I'd rather not feel like a villain."  
Maaya sighed into his shoulder and rolled her eyes, "Whatever you say, A-" she stumbles on his name, however realises it wouldn't be wise to speak his true identity out loud. Of course she knew his identity, if only made sense. Plagg had known whom it was that he was as soon as they'd met. "What should I call you?"

"Um," Adrien so intelligently starts, "Fèlix. Yeah, Fèlix." Maaya then turns to Ladybug's fake persona, "And you?"

Ladybug takes a moment to consider her options. A list of several names spring to mind before she settles on her decision of something simple, yet classy. "Bridgette."

It had been Adrien's idea to enroll in the high school, an idea which Ladybug seemed to decide was the only way to occupy their time while Master Fu attempted to find ways to send them back to the future. While Adrien could think of certain activities the two could partake in, he was more focused on his main selfish indulgence: seeing his mother again.

* * *

"Class, I'd like you to meet your new classmates, Fèlix Delon and Bridgette Arébelle." The surnames hadn't been either of the duo's choice, instead having been thought up by Master Fu. "Mademoiselle Arébelle, you can sit next to Mademoiselle Fuyez*."

Adrien's heartstrings tugged unpleasantly, yet, excitably at the words of who Ladybug would sit next to. Of all the people, Ladybug would be seated next to his mother. Adrien looked over the room, and with a pang of anxiety he realised that he would be most definitely forced to sit next to the last person he wanted to come face-to-face with: Gabriel Agreste.

"And Monsieur Delon, would you sit besides Monsieur Agreste," the teacher, an elderly woman with a rather raspy voice pointed out Gabriel to him, though Adrien already knew who he was. He had to force himself to move forwards towards the seat, identical to the one he sat in in the present.

"Hello," Gabriel spoke softly, though with an air of authority. Adrien wasn't sure if he'd ever been seated this close to his father in his entire life.  
"Um... hi," Adrien managed, though in such a way that made it seem like he had a terrible attitude problem, such a thing which Adrien would have suspected to have deterred Gabriel away from him. However, this was not the case.

"I'm Gabriel," his father holds out a hand towards Adrien, which he warily reciprocates. "Fèlix."  
"Yes, I am aware. The teacher did say that just a moment ago."

So, apparently Gabriel had always been such a higher influence with an aura of power, it wasn't something that suddenly erupted in his adulthood. No wonder the elder Gabriel scared him so much.

Behind him, was Ladybug–"Bridgette"–and his mother. His mother looked just a beautiful as she had when he'd caught that glimpse at her just yesterday. He could hear their slight conversation of introductions, and Ladybug seemed most intimidated by her. Adrien couldn't imagine why–she wasn't in the slightest bit scary, or alarming. Everything about her was radiantly soft and elegant. Almost the embodiment of femininity.

"-This is my BFF, Gabriel." Adrien turned to between his mother and father. He noticed the furrow of Gabriel's brow disappear and a glimmer appear between the ice in his eyes as he looked at Emilie, "Gabe, this is Bridgette."

Unlike his previous slight nod and a patronising comment in Adrien's direction when he had introduced himself, Gabriel seemed a lot less tense in the mere presence of the future Missus Agreste. Adrien had almost forgotten that his father could even feel proper emotions.

"Nice to meet you, Bridgette," he spoke calmly. Adrien couldn't help but compare his own voice to his father's–it was almost disconcerting, how alike they sounded in their younger years. Adrien had to fight the urge to not visibly shudder at the idea. Emilie looked at Gabriel with a slight head-tilt.

"Aren't you gonna introduce me to your new friend?" she almost tutted him. Adrien almost winced. "We're not-"

Gabriel cut over Adrien's declaration against being friends with him. "Em, this is Fèlix Delon. Fèlix, this is my _best friend_ -" he stressed the term, "-Emilie Fuyez."

"Delon, hey? There isn't a possibility you're related to that old-timey actor, Alain Delon, is there?"

"Um, uh-"

Emilie smiled, "I'm joking."

Ladybug was obviously amused by her partner's awkwardness, though she couldn't quite pinpoint why. He seemed absolutely entranced by the possibly-late wife of Gabriel Agreste, yet flinched every time Gabriel got within a half-metre radius of him. She'd have to ask him about that later.

"Anyway!" Emilie suddenly said with enthusiasm, "I just had the greatest idea!"

"Well, go ahead," Gabriel said. Adrien could see just how infatuated he was with her; she was just yet to see it.

"We all hang out. Get to know each other. Ooh! That film Disney film, ' _Les aventures de Bernard et Bianca**_ ' was re-released not to long ago!"

Her energy couldn't help but remind Adrien of someone else he knew, but he couldn't quite put his finger on who exactly.

"I'm up for it," said Ladybug. Emilie smiled. Adrien couldn't help the tugging feeling that, in another life, Ladybug and his mother would get along in the present.

* * *

 _author's note_ _: this chapter ends really badly. apologies._

 _footnotes :_

 ***** _'fuyez' means 'escape' in french. geddit? okay, sorry._

 ****** _you may know the film in it's english name, 'the rescuers'. it was re-released in late-march of 1989._


End file.
